3 & Out - What's going on with Jerry Jones, Brock Purdy's future, Josh Pate joins the pod - The Herd with Colin Cowherd

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 1 (01:31):
What is up everybody? John Middlecoff Three and Out Podcast?
How are we doing? Hopefully everyone's having a good week.
It's good to be heard, good to be seen on
the YouTube, Pianel, go subscribe to that. All of our
content is up there. And mate, you got to make
sure to subscribe to the Three and Out podcast. Yesterday's
feed was not on Collins, So if you don't want

(01:53):
to miss any shows, make sure you subscribe to the
three and Out feed. Appreciate everyone that listens that way.
But no matter what, you won't miss a show. We're
doing them every day obviously. So today we will be
joined by Josh Pate, who's been covering college football now
for years, fellow bald brother. A lot of you guys
have hit me up, it feels like over the last

(02:16):
calendar plus year about having them on. I've seen him
all over my social media feeds. Shot him at DM
and we talked ball for about forty five fifty minutes.
I also wanted to talk a little NFL before he
joins us, well, he already joined me, but before we
play the interview. Wanted to talk a little Jerry Jones,
who went on the radio perty who's obviously very polarizing

(02:40):
right now. They actually play each other Cowboys nin er
Sunday night. Tua is not going to retire, which shouldn't
really be shocking to anybody. Obviously, the doctors said that
he doesn't have to, you know, gave him the go ahead.
He got cleared, and Bill Belichick is really starting to
let it fly, and I appreciate that. It's all I

(03:03):
want out of my former coaches or players that are
talking heads. Just talk like you would normally talk, because
that's the good stuff. And other than that, let's rock
and roll. So we had a show on the Reaction
Show to Monday night. Obviously Colin Migo at Sundays, I
did a Reaction Show Sunday night. So we've already had

(03:23):
a lot of content this week and we'll just we'll
just keep it flowing. But other than that, any other
thing I gotta mention, I don't think so so before
we dive into football, you know, I got to tell
you about my friends, my partners, and the official ticketing
app of this podcast. Listen, do you want to go
to a college football game? Do you want to go
to an NFL game? The NBA is starting now, be careful.

(03:45):
You got to make sure guys aren't load managing, even
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out Game one, so you gotta be careful when purchasing
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World Series while San Franco Giants win a couple actually,
but if you there, it's incredible. So if you're a
Dodger fan, if you're a Yankee fan, and you have
the opportunity to go one of those games, I cannot

(04:06):
recommend it enough. Obviously, concerts is nothing like just working
all week, just just grinding, just working to pay the bills,
make sure there's food on the table for the family,
and realize, you know what, I gotta do something for myself.
I want to enjoy myself this Friday or Saturday and
go to a concert. Take my wife, take my girlfriend,
take my buddy, have a few cocktails, maybe a few beers.

(04:28):
And just have a good time. Well, you can do
it with me because my official ticketing app of this podcast,
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(04:50):
is guaranteed. Okay, Cowboys forty nine Ers. I looked at
the slate this morning of games for this upcoming week.
Not a great week. It's not exactly a banner week.
What last week was, at least on paper, turned out
to be pretty good, right, Packers Houston obviously, Detroit Minnesota

(05:11):
Chiefs against the forty nine ers, and the night game
like it was an entertaining week, and the college football
couple games were really fun in Alabama, Texas and Georgia
or Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee. I'd pumped the brakes on
the excitement. This week not quite as good because people
are always like Middlecoff, you're hyping the Thursday night game. Well,

(05:31):
I'm trying to psych myself in because I'm watching it
and I gotta talk about it for you guys. So
I gotta HiPE my Some games are better than others.
And this game this week's you know, Eagles Bengals, right,
I mean, even the Monday night game is Steelers Giants,
gotta manipulate a little excitement. But the Cowboy Niner game,
even with their records, you know, the Niners are three

(05:53):
and four, the Cowboys are three and three. They both
have been in shambles at different points in time in
this season. Currently both are in shambles. But here's the deal.
Tuesday typically in the NFL. I was thinking about this
today because obviously Jerry went viral last week about saying
he pays their salaries and he will get them fired,

(06:14):
and he was just pissed off. And then even Diana
Russini asked him about it at the owners meetings and
he didn't back down. Well, I got news for you.
Usually guys in their eighties that are super rich tend
to be a little stubborn. I mean, I think that's
a pretty consistent theme of really successful people who are old.
They're usually not the first to go, yeah, screwed up.
There my fault guys or I'd like to have that back,

(06:37):
even if they don't totally believe it, because sometimes it
just makes it easier on everyone, right, hell, anyone and
he married guy you know about to be you know,
you live with people wife. Sometimes it's easy to just go, hey,
I was wrong, even if you truly don't believe it,
but it just eases everything up. Jerry didn't do that today,
And I was thinking about like dysfunctional teams, And obviously

(06:59):
the Jets now are a headliner. Their owner is functioning
as their GM, and unlike Jerry, he doesn't pretend to
be a football guy, so he's just doing it because
he's taken control from the team. Obviously, Aaron Rodgers is
also the GM. He's dictating everything that's going on. And
as Belichick pointed out that like when Sala was there,

(07:19):
they were good on defense. Now he removes all their
defense is bad. So it's just a dysfunctional mess. And
the Cowboys, especially the last couple of years, haven't been
any different than they were under Jason Garrett or years previously.
Like Jerry does whatever he wants, he speaks whenever he wants,
he does radio hits, whenever he wants, he gives his opinions.
That's his prerogative. He owns the team, he signs the checks.

(07:42):
But I think it's kind of getting to the point
where I don't think you can function like this. And
you know, I think Collins said this before and other
people have as well. Does feel like we're headed down
a little Al Davis the latter part of his career
in Oakland that was just really kind of wacky. And

(08:02):
you know, Jerry is going on and on about poorly
designed plays today, about not executing blocks and just ranning
and raving about how shitty the team has been. And
then he also talks about Derrick Henry not being able
to sign them because of the cap issues, and listen,
I do agree, Derrick Henry, if you put him on

(08:22):
the Dallas Cowboys would not be as good as Derrick
Henry has been on the Baltimore Ravens. We're in agreement now.
Would it be an upgrade from what they had one?
Would he look what I expect him to have the
same production? I do not, So I don't think Jerry's
crazy talk there. I do think it's fair when you
make comments that we're all in and you have been close.

(08:44):
At least it felt that way in the regular season,
and then you just couldn't get over the top. That
you would double down and try to make a run.
But most families, like if you think about it, we
all grow up a little different how I was raised,
how you were raised, Like, there is no handbook on parenting.
I don't have kids yet, but I'm sure I'm going
to raise my children different than my brother, than you,

(09:07):
than some of my cousins. But there are probably some
non negotiables to give yourself your kids a chance to
be successful in life. Whether that's just like basic discipline,
whether that is the morals and the ethics of treating
everyone well, just some basic life skills that I think
most people consistently have that raise, you know, good kids

(09:32):
that go on to be functioning members of society. It's
kind of like a football team, like there's not one
specific way to do it right. With Belichick and the Patriots, forever,
no one said anything, no one ever set a peep,
and it was just everyone was walking on eggshells. And
then you looked at Andy Reid and you looked at
Pete Carroll and it was a lot different environment in

(09:53):
those same with the Packers a little more laid back
historically than the Patriots, and it all even the Giants
when they were really good under Tom Coughlin for a
while and competing and winning Super Bowls, a little stiffer environment.
So everyone's different, just like every home is different. But
it is really really difficult to overcome dysfunction. Like any

(10:17):
kid or any person I ever meet that grew up
in crazy dysfunction, it is way more impressive than anything
I overcame that. Listen, was it perfect in my home?
Two parents, never had to worry about food, forced me
to do my homework, Like if I didn't succeed, it
was on me, nobody else. Sometimes you meet people who're like, damn,

(10:37):
how did this guy? What an incredible story, and that
maybe looking back on the last couple of years with
the Cowboys, it's like, it's really hard to overcome Jerry
right now because he never shuts up like you would
have thought this week. And I get it, like Jerry
loves talking, Jerry loves doing media interviews. But after what
happened last week, they did not play a game, right,

(11:00):
He's like, you know what, I'm just gonna take this
week off I'm not going to do a radio hit
this week. We will reconvene after Sunday night's game and
do it next week. There's nothing to talk about because
look at what he's getting asked about Derreck Henry in
the Baltimore Ravens. So I am not a huge believer.
Like I said, you got to be the Patriots and

(11:22):
say nothing, But this would have been an easy week
to make it easier on your team, who already when
they come back, is going to get peppered about questions
from Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin who are just shitting
on the team, and then Jerry kind of doubles down
and agrees with them. So he's basically just acknowledging my
coach is a dead man walking, which we already knew
because he was in a one year contract. And like,

(11:44):
I feel for Cowboy fans because clearly your team, especially
when you're injured, you're not good enough. And two, your
owner feels a little bit like a loon. And he's
been really successful for the league his vision with the marketing,
but he feels kind of like this freelancing maverick that
is really old and doesn't really know what he's doing

(12:06):
anymore and is almost counterproductive to in theory the most
important thing, which would be winning football games. But he
might tell you just being a huge brand that's really
all that matters, and that's what it feels like he
cares about more than football. And I just think, you
guys gotta be ready because it could be a weird
couple of years now they're the Dallas Cowboys and they

(12:26):
go eight to nine or seven and ten and they
fire Mike McCarthy. He wouldn't even be fired, he just
wouldn't have a contract anymore, a contract not renewed. It
would be fascinating because Belichick is the complete opposite, at
least as a coach, not this version that we see
on a weekly basis on television, Like he wouldn't want
to deal with that now. I don't know. So I

(12:49):
just think Jerry Jones has kind of feels like he's
jumped the shark a little bit. And the conversation around
perty I think we can do two things. The party's
in this camp right now that Kirk Cousins was in
when he was really young before he signed, and it
was I think people think more highly of Purdy than
they did that Cousins, But you saw Dak in this

(13:12):
early in his career. You honestly saw Russell Wilson in
this his first couple of years in the career. No
one wants to acknowledge that he's any good, and every
time that he has a really bad game, people go
all in, which I understand that's that's part of the business.
I saw Joe Missoula talking about Tatum on a clip

(13:33):
it might have been a clip from the Netflix show,
and he's like, it's a privilege to be criticized. I'm like,
that's a pretty sweet line because he's not totally wrong, right,
It's a privilege to be criticized. No one's criticizing like
Andy Dalton or Gardner Minshew right now, no one gives
a shit, right. So I think the thing with Brock
Purdy is this, he's gonna have to play well in

(13:57):
some of these big games this year or it's gonna
get way louder, because even last year the talk was
so stupid. It's like, guys, he makes a million dollars,
So yeah, he has a bad game on Christmas against
the Baltimore Ravens, one of the best statistical defenses we've
ever seen. It's like a lot of guys have like
most guys don't play well in those moments, right, A
lot of guys that are making forty to fifty million

(14:18):
dollars throughout the season didn't play well. But now it's
like kind of getting down nutcutting time because do you
want to pay the guy fifty million dollars a year?
And I think that conversation is a lot different than
the conversation's previously had. Now at this notion that like,
look what he's playing with, he can't make anything happen,
that's well, yeah, if he has to play at fifty

(14:39):
million dollars with a rookie wide receiver who just got shot,
Ronnie Bell who can't catch a cold and run a
right route, Jacob Cowing who Kyle Shanahan just doesn't like,
and George Kittle, who Kyle like refuses to call plays
for consistently, then yeah, it would be rocky, just like
it's rocky right now for Mahomes who's playing with Worthy

(15:00):
who can play, and then a bunch of other random
wide receivers. Right, you do need some talent on the
field with you, Like Lamar Jackson ain't exactly throwing to
me and you, he's a great player, elite, he's a
Hall of Famer. But you think it helps throw into
a healthy Mark Andrews likely Jay Flowers, Bateman and having
a Hall of Fame running back behind you probably helps.

(15:21):
I mean, it just does. Now, you don't get a
perfect team when you make a lot of money, and
part of paying you a lot of money, in my opinion,
is that when we get into shit, you can put
us on your back. And there are only a few
guys that can do that. So if you pay party
and it kind of keeps going up and down like this,
I think we have to acknowledge he's probably not a

(15:43):
put you on my back of the franchise and carry
you for years, And I would agree with that. As
of right now, that's not going to be a style.
He is going to need help that most quarterbacks do.
Like I said, But the camp of guys he's in,
the Goffs, the Dacks, like they need help. Jalen hurts

(16:04):
like Jalen looks fine when aj Brown and DeVante are
out there and more than functional. You remove those guys,
he looks like the twenty fourth best quarterback in the NFL.
So that there's pressure not just on Brock but also
on the organization. And I think these conversations, this stuff's fluid,
and I just get back to, like, I have no
clue how he's gonna look. I would expect him to

(16:25):
bounce back on Sunday Night. One the Cowboys defense is terrible,
and two he's consistently shown the metal fortitude to like
not just play shitty football for a while. But I
my overall theme with this is for any guy that
we're not talking about an elite, no brainer player at

(16:46):
any position. Right when you get the Justin Jefferson's, when
you get the TJ. Watts, when you get the Roquan Smith's,
Fred Warners, whoever we're talking, it's like, yeah, just pay
the guy. What are we talking about. This guy's elite,
Like this guy is the best player at his position
or best two or three players at his position. You
just pull the trigger. You've seen it with some of
the young left tackles. It's easy when you get guys

(17:08):
like him. I just need more information, and I always
get back to what's the rush. So if we end
this season, and if I'm the Niners and you're eight
to nine or nine and eight, and it's been Rocky
and guys have been in nine. I mean, I Ekes
gone a Eukes Gone. Debo is questionable this week because
he just got out of the hospital with pneumonia. McCaffrey

(17:28):
ain't coming back this week though. McCaffrey, like the running
game has not been their problem. But if it does
get weird, you know what, I'd say, run it back
another year, play in the rookie content. What's you gonna do?
Hold out? So I just think sometimes we've got to
take a deep breath. Not every not every good organizations
don't just give you one hundred and eighty million dollars
if they're not totally sold. And the more and more

(17:50):
information you get, the more you either are sold or
the more you have apprehension and are unsure. So I
think this is this is a good learning process for
Kyle in the front office about rock Perty who obviously
they really like and they believe it. But the production
makes business. You're either getting it done or you're not.

(18:12):
You're either proving it when the chi chips are down,
or you're not. And I'm fascinated to watch out it
plays out. I expect him to bounce back this week though,
Tua My take was when that happened was his last
concussion in the fencing, is the NFL would step in
and not allow him to play because they don't want

(18:35):
that visual again. And it turns out that he went
to a bunch of different doctors I was reading today,
and none of them said that he should consider retirement,
and one I think it would have been very difficult.
This is an educated guess. I don't know the guy,
but based on his previous actions and words like I

(18:56):
would have been stunned if a week ago Tua just
said I'm retiring from the NFL. I'm out, We're good.
It's not worth it. I think a very very small
people that played in the NFL that talk about football,
even fans with common sense, expected that to happen. I

(19:19):
do wonder, though, because I can't imagine the NFL wants
them to come back. Because the likelihood of it happening again,
I think we have to acknowledge. How could you debate
that it's not extremely high because he doesn't just get
knocked out. He lays there with his arms pointing at
the sky. It's happened multiple times, but the NFL couldn't

(19:42):
force him. They're in business with the players and the
NFL PA. I think it's fair to say would have
if they got involved, we'll sue you and it would
have got really messy. So maybe it was never going
to be an opportunity for them to get involved if
there wasn't one doc who was adamant he was making
the wrong decision. But he said he's not gonna wear

(20:06):
a Guardian cap. He's gonna do it. Not surprised at all.
I think it's easy for a lot of people that
are forty to fifty to comment on what a young
person should do. I don't even think it's unfair to
have the opinion like this is kind of crazy because
we all expect it to happen again. That's what's kind
of sad is it feels like he's not safe out there,

(20:30):
and like there's a lot of money on the line.
This is not a guy like I'm just doing it
for the love of the game. You're talking one hundred
plus million. I think it's like I think we did
the math the night had happened. It's like close to
one hundred and thirty million dollars if he just walked away.
So I'm not saying this is strictly about the money,
but you'd have to be naive to think that that

(20:51):
doesn't have an impact. And like he loves playing football,
he's been playing football, I would imagine since he was five, six,
seven years old. It's all he knows, and most people
all they know. You know, ideally your job isn't dangerous.
I saw this clip going viral about Aaron Boone on
Instagram when they ask him what baseball means to him,

(21:13):
and he says, it's my life beside my kids and
my wife and my immediate family. That there's nothing in
my faith. There's nothing more important. It's a family business
and it's all I know. The whole thing is kind
of what makes me go. And that's true for a

(21:35):
lot of players, especially in the NFL, because you know
when you hear things about like, you know, it's basketball.
I think the thing with the NBA they're really battling
right now is it feels like does everyone love playing
basketball or are you just doing it right now? Because these
salaries are astronomical, it just doesn't feel to the common
fan like people love playing in the NBA like they
once did, and it's been bad for their product. In

(21:57):
terms of ratings. I think that's how a major because
of the load management. It's like, what are we doing here?
We're in football. You're either all in or you're not,
especially a quarterback, because of the mental grind that it
takes throughout the week, the preparation, like who, I'm not

(22:19):
a big academia guy, hated school. It wasn't really for me,
despite having a couple degrees, but studying for tests is
not fun and for me personally, stuff that didn't really
interest me. Actually some of it does kind of now,
but at the time it did not like studying for
an accountant accounting test. I'd rather like jump off a bridge.

(22:42):
So at least football players like what they're doing. But
all they do throughout the week, the majority of it,
like how many hours are they really on the field
five and a half from Wednesday through Friday. The majority
of it is in the film room, is taking notes,
is sitting there with your co coach, your offensive coordinator
and just grinding preparing for the test, and they fucking

(23:07):
love it, and like this is it's gonna be It's
gonna be really bad for the NFL if he lays
there and the same thing happens again. But he chose this,
No one's forcing him to do this. And last, but
not least, I gotta give Belichick credit all I want when, ah,

(23:29):
you know, when a coach or a player goes into
the talking into a mic, whether it's on TV, whether
it's in radio, whether it's in podcast, YouTube, you name it.
Just give me what you really think. Because I've been
around enough of these guys. We're all human beings. How
do we all talk when we're just sitting in the

(23:51):
backyard with a couple buddies with beers, Like it's just
a real, raw conversation. It's no different when coaches are
talking to their buddy about players or other coaches or
other personnel moves. It's raw and real. And then you
get so many guys that go on TV you're like,
this is such did not say anything, and Belichick, who

(24:13):
historically said nothing, is really He was on McAfee on Monday,
as he is every week, and was asked about the
Giants and what he's been crushing the Jets, which is
probably easy because he's kind of been doing that for
years anyway, So I don't give him too much credit
on that one. That's kind of been his like shtick

(24:34):
over the years is hating the Jets, but everyone else
like the Giants organization clearly means a lot to him.
Won a couple of Super Bowls there, did a thirty
for thirty there with Bill Parcells, and just take a
listen to him on just the Saquon situation and his thoughts.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
The Giants thing. I don't really understand. He was their
best player. You know, for a couple of million dollars more,
they could have kept him, I guess, you know, instead
they got a guard or somebody.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (25:02):
If the offensive line doesn't look very good.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
I mean that look that they're playing. They're playing a
guy at left tackle who shouldn't be playing left tackle.
Evan Neil is drafted in the first round. He doesn't play.
You know, they have some uf A guards that are
pretty suspect. It's it's a tough line, and honestly I
thought that you know, the quarterback.

Speaker 4 (25:23):
Is is trying to hang in there.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
It's just it's been tough sledding.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
Gluck Giants fans, Pluck Giants fans.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
This would be a big one for him this week
in Pittsburgh, right they played Pittsburgh coming up Monday night,
right right.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
So I mean I think what's cool there is just
his his just disinterest on even giving any credit to
any of these like how big of a joke? Like
he looks at these others like UFS an undrafted free agent,
like the guard you are playing is like a widget

(26:04):
and it's a worthless widget. And that's how coaches talk.
And I honestly never thought we would get that and listen,
like we can argue till we're blue in the face.
Should they have signed Saquan? Should we not have? We saw,
we literally saw the owner of the team saying, this
is not a great idea, and I don't want him

(26:25):
to go to Philly. That's what he said to the GM.
So it's like typically we're just giving our opinions and
we argue about it, like we can argue till we're
blue in the face. We saw what it looked like
from within the building. It was unprecedented access and the
owner wasn't just uncomfortable. He said he couldn't sleep if

(26:46):
he went to the Eagles. Then the fucking guy goes
to the Eagles. He rushes for a buck seventy five,
He gets caught on camera that they're like, hey, I
think it was Sirianni went over to him, was like, hey,
you're thirteen yards short of your career high. He's like,
I'm cool, man. Let the other dudes eat literally what
he said. So it's like Saquon gets double the credit.

(27:07):
And I just think that these are the tight moments
when you got Belichick who is just taking shot after
shot at the general manager. And I don't know, I mean,
I think I think the hard part about these moves
if you're an owner, like what are you gonna do?
Fire the GM, keep day Ball, bring in a new GM,

(27:30):
and force Dable on him. It just gets really out
of whack really quick. So if you don't get fired
Monday morning after that game, maybe you wonder if it's
in the back of his head he's gonna do it
when the season ends, when this team does not win
many games. But all I hope is that Belichick just
keeps you know, firing takes Okay, very very excited. I've

(28:04):
been seeing this guy on my social media feeds and
my YouTube algorithm for a while now. Josh Pate a
fellow Bald brother. He has a big YouTube show. Josh
Pate College Football Show. You can find it on YouTube,
go subscribe. And this guy living in the South at
games every single week, firing off his opinions on everything

(28:27):
that's going on, not just in the SEC, but in
college football at large. Very very excited. We try to go.
We do a little thing called Cough on campus every
single week and for Wednesday show obviously college football. I'm
sure you saw some of the ratings numbers. I mean,
it's it's never been more popular. And coming from a
West Coast guy, you know, the South with Sabin and

(28:48):
Dabbo and Kirby, it felt very regionalized. Now you know
the transfer portal, let's face it, it's kind of turned
it in with the twelve team playoff, a little NFL
field works. It's like, how many teams have a legit
chance this year? Your college football guy? Has Has it
ever been more intriguing in terms of like, oh, Miami
or Florida State or Alabama is just a lock to win.

(29:10):
It doesn't feel like that at all, right now, does it?

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Yeah? And I'm almost a little detached. I appreciate you
having me on, John, I'm almost a little detached in
theory as to why that is. I know it's very
common to say, look what the twelve team playoff has
done to college football. I look at it, and that
has a contributing factor to it. But if I still
had a four team playoff, if I still had the

(29:33):
BCS right now, and I removed Saban and I injected
Portal and I injected nil, those elements, even if we
were having a four team or a two team field
this year would still have a lot of teams in
it because we're I mean, it's not Halloween yet and
already every big time player has a loss. And then
you've also got that seven vibe of having some random

(29:53):
teams like Indiana and Brigham Young and Iowa State in
the mix. So I also wonder, here's what I wonder
as we dive into this, is this the new normal?
Or is this still the big boys trying to figure
out and calibrate how they tilt the seesaw back in
their favor. And you can either take that to mean
a few big boy programs or just a couple of
big boy conferences. I'm in Nashville, as you know, and

(30:15):
they kind of had a little summit here the big
ten in the SEC last week to talk about the
state of play in college athletics. So I don't know
where this is going. I just we may be circling
the funnel or we may be taking off. I'm just
enjoying it as it is right now.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Well, where I think, you know, college football has obviously
always been a big sport, but where I think the
transfer portal has benefited is last night Monday night football.
For example, the Chargers, who are three and two, play
in Arizona, who most people think, you know, aren't that good,
and then you're watching the game and either team can win.
And for a long time, I think during the Saban

(30:50):
dynasty specifically, there were a couple other teams. Georgia came
at the end, Dabbo in the middle, but it was
two or three teams and you were you were, I mean,
your jaw hit the floor when they lost. Now, it's
just not to me. And I think Kirby, and I
know you've talked to him over the years, he had
a comment, I don't know if it was at a
press conference or in an interview earlier this year that like,

(31:10):
you know, the big difference is my roster's just not
as deep, And I think that speaks to Obviously, the
top teams are gonna be the top teams like Ohio State, Georgia.
In theory, USC should be good, Texas, right, Alabama, LSU,
but they're not gonna be two three deep as like geez,
you should see these guys coming up because that guy
might transfer. So I think that's what benefited just as

(31:31):
a football lover. That has made this year and I
think moving forward because the transfer portal obviously has had
major ripple effects positive negatively, but I actually think it's been.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
Cool that way. That's the big differentiator, and that's why
I say it's not so much the expanded size of
the playoff field. That's the end result. That's like the
north Star everyone's looking towards. But I was there. I
was in Athens in like February and we had on
the show, but I probably sat down with him for
like an hour an hour and a half and just

(32:04):
talked shot before that, and one of the things he
was talking about that I ended up asking, are you
okay to say this on camera? He said, yeah, we'll
talk about it. He said, I'm not losing my starters
like I'm Georgia. I'm not gonna lose my starters. What
I'm losing is my twos because someone out there is
willing to pay one and a quarter for my backup
left guard, and that's just not a price point I'm
going to hit because they are not worth that at

(32:27):
that point in their careers. So when I have injuries
and they've had them already. Tate Ratleige maybe their best
offensive line and he went down for a portion of
this year, you are looking at Georgia or Texas or
Alabama like the cream of the crop. You're looking at
them going from a one to a three instead of
from a one to a two depth wise relative to
what it used to be like. So that had already
started to happen. You were talking about Saban at Alabama

(32:49):
in the ventage Saban years, you could have honestly, I
would have loved to see this alternate scenario play out.
Have Bama's backups just take the field as a team,
They're probably a top ten, top fifteen team in any
given year, quarterback included. Well, then it started to wane
a little bit because the portal started to bite Bama
on the back up front, and Saban realized that and
he decided this is not for me. Anymore.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Now.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
Kirby's like late forties, so he's not going to decide
that it doesn't feel like I think as history goes on,
or as time goes on and we look back historically
at that Saban run, how wild is it that Davos
Sweeney took a program that had never been It's not
like someone resurrected Texas. He took Clemson that had never
been a true powerhouse and built them up right smagdab

(33:31):
in the middle of the Saban Alabama dynasty to be
able to match them and then beat them twice for
national titles with no discernible advantages baked in at Clemson.
That right there, like in time, is going to be
a wild chapter of college football.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Do you think he benefited? Georgia at the time wasn't
what George is now. Some of the Florida schools were down,
and obviously his rosters. You know, you look at the NFL,
I mean it was stacked with elite players at all
at all positions, a lot like Saban's team right on
the line of scrimmage, skill guys, quarterback that it was
kind of a unique scenario for him, though you're watching

(34:07):
his team now I know they're not playing anybody after Georgia. Like,
he's still gonna have a really, really good program. He's
just in this unique area right where he just refuses
to do transfer portal or could we have Like one
thing I want to ask is like Florida, for example,
Everyone's like, oh, it's is Lane gonna go there? Could
they go steal signetti? Do you think the jobs obviously

(34:30):
a Bama or an LSU or Texas is always going
to be an incredible job. But some of these jobs
now that haven't really Like Florida hasn't been good for
a while. You know, Nebraska is an example, hasn't been
really good. I'm talking like, you know top five. Do
you think that's changed? Like is Florida a great job? Like?
Are these jobs with the portal and everything? Does Lane
need to leave? And we get into Lane a little

(34:51):
bit later, But I'm just using that as an example.
He's getting ten million dollars, he has a huge nil
fund to go buy players. What is the difference in
twenty twenty four where there it was a clear one.
You know when we were like in college or kids,
like it was obvious you would go there. I wonder
if that's the case anymore with the non top five
six lock you know, been every good every year for

(35:13):
our entire life.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
You're gonna get a lot of debate on this. I
know because I talk to as many people in the
industry as I can on this. I disagree with a
lot of them. So my answer is, yes, Florida is
a discernibly better job than all mess. But it all
depends on what you value. They're not going to pay
you way, way, way above and beyond what you can
get it all mess, So if it's about the bottom
line of your salary, no, it does not make sense

(35:35):
for someone like Lane Kiffen to leave. Here's what I know.
Florida's problem is what Tennessee's problem was. It's not that
they lack anything. It's not that the sport has left
them behind. There is nothing that you cannot accomplish at
Florida today that the big boys can't accomplish. Just like
for a long time, people fool themselves into thinking the
sport has left Tennessee behind. It's passed them by. It hadn't.

(35:57):
They just sucked at making hires. And if you make
tour three bad hires in a row, you've lost a generation.
You get kids to get in high school that have
not known you being a winning program. Here's what I
do know. Florida Post Urban Meyer had allowed themselves to
sink into a little bit of a complacency rut where
they were convinced the logo and the helmet was what won,

(36:18):
and it wasn't. And they got so antiquated in their
organizational structure everything from facilities to operations. They did not
match the big boys over the past few years. I
can't sit here and tell you they've made the right higher.
I have no clue what's going to happen when aape
you're maybe he's there and maybe he's gone. It is
so night and day different down there from a behind

(36:38):
the curtain standpoint. So if you care about being able
to hire your army, there is actually no place in
America that's doing that to a better degree than Florida
right now. Which boggles someone's mind listening to this because
you think, well, it must not be doing any good.
They're not winning. That just is indicative of the hire
that they've made, or the hires that they've made. Almost

(36:58):
to the point, John, where I've talked to some folks
in the representation world. I've talked to a couple of
coaches who kind of gauge, like, what's Florida like? Because
I get to go see all these places. I actually
get to see the hood. They have such a good
infrastructure down there from a personnel, recruiting, strength and nutrition,
sports science standpoint, I almost think it may be wise

(37:21):
if let's say there's a change down there for whoever
takes that job, to do a little bit deeper assessment
internally of who they have. So normally it's you come in,
you clean the entire thing, and you bring in your people,
who they got some really world class people down there
that you wouldn't know the names of, per se because
they gave Napier a blank check to go get the
best of the best, and in many ways he did that.

(37:42):
And so if that's what you care about, and if
you do care about your brand meaning a little bit
more in recruiting, and it does mean a little bit
more than old miss, if you care about being able
to leverage recruiting in the state of Florida, which for
obvious reasons they can. I still think it's a better job.
It's not going to be a better job in your
raw salary dollars and cents mode. But I think it
is a better job because of the four or five

(38:03):
added layers that I think going go into making up
a job and its value.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Okay, let's let's start with the game you were at,
and let's start on the Bama side. I'm a Debor truther,
you know, as a Frozen State guy. Now I've been
following his career for a little while, and I'm taking
a lot of heat. Now, obviously the Vanderbilt game might
be a once in a lifetime. It turns out Vanderbilt's
not bad, right, So, but you know, you lose a

(38:32):
couple games in Alabama. I think I heard you say
on a show. It's the first time they've had two
losses at this point in time since like Saban's first year.
So it's it's pretty jarring for that fan base. I
just believe in the guy. Look at his record, he's
gonna be okay. Watching that game, I mean, they're riding
a seventeen year old wide receiver force feeding in the
ball like he's Jerry Rice in his prime. It's pretty
crazy for a program. Obviously they've had great true freshmen,

(38:54):
but how much his offense from a passing game standpoint,
like he has to rely on that quarterback to kind
of ride him like an NFL team would. Right, he
did it with Panix, he did it with hain Or.
That's kind of how he plays. And Jalen who was
incredible in that first half against Georgia. You know, even
the Bandy game wasn't his fault, but these last couple
of weeks it's it's and definitely against Tennessee. What's the

(39:17):
vibe down in kind of that area are people because
sometimes when you get, you know, an outsider to the South.
I remember someone told me this an outsider to the South.
Even if they're good, if it doesn't go well early,
it could kind of snowball the negativity and there's no
blocking that avalanche from coming. Is this year? Like, can
he afford to go eight and four and still have

(39:38):
a great career? Is it really hard? You got to
dig yourself.

Speaker 4 (39:41):
Out of a hole? Uh, you're right about how the
South treats newcomers. I am a Southerner. I know because
I've watched it my whole life. It's stupid. Some of
the stupidest things you'll see are Southerners thinking they invented
college football, and I grew up down here. And I'm
not throwing my fellow man under the bus. I'm saying
I want Urban Meyer come in here and dominate. Having

(40:02):
never set foot in the South, I saw Nick Saban
come in here and dominate. And the talk, although no
one will admit it, the talk at the time was, way,
did the SEC shows these boys what real ball's about? Well,
they showed you what real ball was about. So obviously
the determining factor is not the pinpoint on the map
as to where you were born. The same things win
that have always won. And that goes for whether you're
born in sus Saint Marie, Michigan, or Valdosta, Georgia. De

(40:25):
Boor is a stud. Deboor is one of the best
in the game. Unequivocally, he's the right guy for the job.
Unequivocally he'll win there. They are not good right now.
And I'll tell you a couple of things you mentioned Milroe.
I'll put this as delicately as possible. I don't think
that offensive staff called up twenty design throws to Ryan
Williams in a game. I'll put that that way. I'll

(40:47):
go back to the Georgia game. You watch Georgia. Once
they figured out that perimeter run and how to shut
that down, Vama did virtually nothing offensively the rest of
that game. They just built a big enough lead that
they could hold on with it, and Ryan Williams made
a superman cash down the sideline. They are a very
flawed team right now. They lacked the toughness both mentally
and physically that vintage Saban teams had had. Sabans ladder

(41:10):
teams lacked that. Saban's ladder teams were very prone to
being penalized, and so you're seeing a lot of carry
over here. Sabans ladder teams didn't have the elite depth
that we were talking about just a second ago. So
I'll tell you another factor that's seeped into college football
right now, and you're going to see it with any
new hire. Your biggest risk when you take over a program,

(41:32):
especially in January, especially with a loaded roster like Debor did,
is you can't lose a critical mass of your guys,
and the portal's wide open, and the current structure of
the sport is everyone gets to poach your roster, but
you don't get to retaliate because there's that thirty day window.
So they were having to do whatever it took to
keep the roster together, and they did a pretty good

(41:53):
job of it. So then you go into spring John
and everyone's figuring you out as a staff and you're
figuring your roster out. But all the way, Wow, you know,
he knew. I have that post spring portal window coming up.
I've got to make sure my roster doesn't get rated.
I've got to have a team for this fall. And
so you're gonna have to pardon guys if they don't
run a militaristic spring camp and run people off, or

(42:16):
run the risk of running people off. Because as as
much as the old school guys would say, well, you
know what, you got to be tough, and if you're
not tough, you're not cut out for this program, in
the new age, you can go in there and be
bear Brian if you want to. Well, then you drag
a limp carcass of a roster into the fall and
you go seven to five and you don't get rewarded
for running a tough spring camp at that point. So

(42:37):
what I'm trying to say is, I think a year
from now and two years from now, I'll feel a
whole lot more comfortable that I'm seeing the Kaitlin Deboor
Alabama than I am right now. Right now, it's like
they're rebuilding the plane and they're at twenty five thousand feet.
That's kind of the way it feels to me when
I watch them.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
How about Tennessee. Obviously the hype on the quarterback, you know,
it's been a little rocky, and he has an offensive coach.
But defensively, you know, they won the game. That's really
all that matters. What was your big takeaway from them
in terms of the big picture on the season? Can
they win the SEC? Can they compete to win a
national championship? Are they good enough on offense?

Speaker 4 (43:13):
They can be, They're not right now, they can be.
The The thing about them is their defense has bought
them time. And that's not something I think most people
thought they would say about Tennessee. But I was up
there in spring as well. I got through around to
as many places as I could. And when you're in
the building up there and you're Josh Haipel, Tennessee, Niko
i am Aliov all these receivers they got, you expect people

(43:34):
to be talking offense. Offense offense, and all they wanted
to talk about was defense. And I don't mean on
the record, I mean off the record too, like they
were adamant we are as underrated as it can be defensively.
This staff is an underrated defensive staff. And now Tim
Banks coordinator, like here they are. I mean they're winning games.
They've won games, and if they haven't, they've kept their
team in games to give them a shot to win.

(43:55):
To the point where if you've got the kind of
raw talent at the quarterback position that Niko Ayamli is,
you and I have watched college football long enough to
know inevitably every October or early November, some team it's
like their rubber band has been pulled back all year
and then it finally gets let go, and you see
like the pop moment, and you find yourself around Thanksgiving

(44:17):
looking at a team that's red hot, and you're saying, dude,
you remember a month ago this team felt dead in
the water. Well, Tennessee has been. They got shut out
in the Bama game in the first half. They've been
shut out three consecutive weeks in the first half. But
then they started to hit some explosives in the second half,
not a ton of them. They didn't need to hit
a ton of them. But if they get hot enough,
they got a dominant tailback, they've got a quarterback that

(44:39):
may be emerging. They've got a defense they can win with.
It's the kind of a recipe in a year where
there are no elite teams where they could probably afford
to lose another game and still be a playoff team,
I would imagine. So I'm not writing Tennessee off. Dude,
I've not even written Bama off, and they look horrible
right now, so I'm definitely not righting Tennessee off in
this equation.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Wouldn't LSU fall under that category? I mean, after Week
one we're like, oh, we're out up, Brian Kelly, and
now it's like, oh, their defense is kind of coming on.
You know, their quarterback, their offensive weapons, we know they
got a NFL offensive lineman. This coach has a long
resume of winning. It's like, keep an eye on LSU.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
It's the biggest wildcard team in college football right now.
So Brian Kelly. However, we could do a whole show
on how the staff was put together, but that staff
got totally overhauled. Southern cal number two and LSU number
one were the teams that I thought did the best
job of totally overhauling and upgrading a side of the
ball staff wise in the spring. So I mean Brian Kelly,

(45:36):
to his credit, and the powers that be down there,
they looked at Missouri, they said, there's no way Missouri
should better than us on that side of the ball.
And they went and got Blake Baker, the coordinator from
up there. They got Kevin Peeples, they went and got
Bo Davis, defensive line coach from Texas who's been around
the block and understands. And remember a few years ago,
you remember John that leaked video from a Texas team
bus after they had lost a game and it was

(45:59):
dark and one of probably one of the softest players
on the bus, whoever he was, pulled out the cell
phone and he was recording a coach just going off
on him.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Talking about how this is a d line coach or
something was going.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
Now that was Bo Davis, and so Bo Davis was right,
and the kind of Texas has morphed into what he
said they should be. And he's at LSU now. So
yet again we have a team with a quarterback that
is emerging and has shown you that he can take
over games. You've got a receiver Cord that's got three
dependable guys with a shot fire NFL one. You got

(46:31):
really good potential offensive line play. They just ran the
ball against Arkansas in a bad dynamics spot, scheduling wise,
as good as they've run it all year, and their
defense has continued to come on. And even losing Harold Perkins,
the dirty secret around southern football circles was, hey, watch out.
They may be better without Perkins because they don't try
and build around him. They've actually got good enough athletes

(46:53):
to where just watch and see. Now. That's what coaches
kept texting me. Well, they look better now. You don't
want to say that losing a guy was good, but
they look better now in the aggregate. And so they
have now got a situation where they play A and
M this weekend. How many college football fans, by the way,
do you think are aware that the two teams who
are tied for first in the SEC play this weekend?

(47:16):
Because it's not Georgia, it's not Texas, it's LSU and
A and M. Those are the teams tied for first,
and they play this weekend. If LSU gets through that game, man,
they got Bama coming into Tiger Stadium probably at night.
From what I'm told, in a couple of weeks like
that could be the team that gets downhill momentum. And
as I've said, like three times in the past ten minutes,

(47:36):
if there were an elite team out there, it would
feel like all this conversation was funneling towards the same direction.
There is not an elite team out there. A bunch
of them can be had, and that's I'm glad you
brought them up. That is a huge wildcard team. To
me right now, who you.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Like in that A and MLSU game?

Speaker 4 (47:52):
Slight lean LSU. Actually, when we get done, I got
to break that down because as you and I speak,
I am doing a show tonight where we'll do the
predictions on that one. I have a very slightly in LSU,
but I'm telling you it may not be this year,
but in years to come. A and M is going
to be very very serious player in this whole mix.
They quietly nailed their higher. They nailed the higher of

(48:12):
Mike Elko. He's not flashy, he's not a headline grabber.
That team will be a headline grabber in time. They've
got a good enough team to win this year.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
That game College Station and that place is going to
be see I think that in all the talk about
Niland Stadium, I was at Autin a couple of.

Speaker 4 (48:29):
Weeks ago, unbelievable. There's a lot of talk always about
Tiger Stadium at night. The one place from an environment standpoint,
and it kind of coincides with a quality of program
standpoint that has the chance to explode is Texas A
and M. I you ought to buy all the stock
in A and M you can. You ought to carve
out as big a market share of that fan base

(48:49):
as you can, because that's one that could just mushroom
cloud over the next few years.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
I heard a story yesterday actually from a buddy that
is close with the coach on Georgia's staff, and that
coach told him when they were getting ready to play
TCU Tuesday of that week, so they had about a
week till the game. You know, the game was a
following Monday. They went full padded practice and he's like,
you might as well thought this was the first scrimmage

(49:17):
in fall camp. He's like blood, He's like it was
a war Zone. And I was on with Coward last
week and I said, I the one thing with coaches,
and you're around these guys, you can't fake toughness. And
at the end of the day, Kirby is just a
tough guy. And that game against Texas was just a
microcosm of everything he stands for as a coach, whether

(49:38):
it's two deeps as deep as it is, you can't
fake that edge that I can't even imagine it was
like at Georgia for the seven days leading up to
that game. Starks done a good job. He's clearly improved
a lot as a coach, But if you're not truly
a tough guy, and listen, most offensive former quarterbacks are
not right. That's just not like they're laying Lincoln. That's

(49:59):
not there. That's not who they are at their corps.
This is an overachieving safety who menteed under Nick saban
like and it was on full display. And so you
watch Georgia in that game. You take the second half
of the Bama game. I know they've had some weird games,
but you go when they come even with the little
shaky quarterback play, that defense man, I mean, that's gonna

(50:20):
be tough to beat if they play like that. I
mean they I don't think anyone's beating them if their
defense is bringing that intensity in a game. And obviously
once they get to the playoffs or the SEC Championship
or some of these big games, I don't know. Man,
that walker coming off the edge, Holy moly.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
I texted one of their stabbers afterwards, I said, are
you guys confident you can reach in your bag and
pull that out three more times? You'll probably need that
two or three more times. If you are, then that's
a rap for the season, unless bet goes down or
something like that. Like, that's a rap for the season.
So it's a non negotiable for them. The whole toughness angle.
It's not about hyper momentum or motivation. Everyone's hyped up

(50:59):
for these games. That's the big misnomer. It's not about
how loud the music is in the locker room, what
the pregame speech is like. This stuff is one in
the spring, this stuff is one in summer workouts. And
you're talking about bloody Tuesday. That's what they call their
practices there every week, Bloody Tuesday. It is violent. It's unbelievable.
It's far more taxing than the game will be on
those players on Saturday. But that's that's the only way

(51:22):
they know, and they'll lose a couple of guys over
the course of a season practice in that way, but
in their mind, they'll lose a couple of games not
practicing that way. And I want people to understand this, Okay.
I went and watched Texas earlier this year against Michigan,
and that was a game that no one cares about
now because Michigan's bad, But that was a game, remember
in the time where most of the country had convinced

(51:43):
itself Texas is about flash and if Michigan can turn
this into a street fight, Michigan will have a good
shot to win this game. And I remember sort of,
you know, talking to some of the Texas folks during
that week, and they were like, do we hope it
turns into a street fight? That's actually our game and
the world doesn't know it. At my point is they
run things the same way Georgia does, or they think

(52:05):
they do, and so I want to put it in
that context. Texas is as big and strong and fast
as any roster in the country, including Georgia. If you
see those guys in person, and then you understand Georgia
did what they did to those guys. It would blow
your mind that anyone could do that to Texas. And

(52:25):
that's really the differentiator in who gets to make thirteen
million dollars a year to coach this sport. It's not
CAUs Kirby Smart has an edge on the grease board
when he talks x's and o's. It's not about how
good he is in a pregame speech environment or anything
like that. It is about taking your mentality, which is
just eat glass for breakfast every day, basically, but not

(52:47):
just that. You have to be able to make an
entire building full of people think and act that way.
And some of them weren't born that way. By the way,
some of them you have to put that mentality in
them so that you can pull it out of them.
And it's like it's like watching a bunch of people
get their hands tied behind their back and there's a
huge fan in front of their face, and human nature

(53:07):
would be to back away from it, and Kirby Smart
has his entire organization willing to just lean into it,
eyes wide open, come what may, and they just trust him.
The little workout, and that is.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Say it's a saving thing, right, and most.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
People say yes, it's so simple for us to say
we just did this in two minutes, and yet it
takes a lifetime to master that, and most people won't
master it even in a lifetime. But if you can,
there's no limit on what you can achieve because you
can get other people to do that collectively. That's dude,
That is the difference. There are guys, I guarantee you
right now sitting around busting their tail who have worked

(53:41):
in football their entire lives, who are making sixty thousand
dollars in some support staff role, and they're like, how
come this? What makes this guy worth thirteen million? Because
he can get other people to act like that. That's
the difference. That's really the difference.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
So what's your take on Texas then? Is that just
a kind of an anomaly game rough up perfect spot
for Georgia or you know the quarterback play. I was
at the Red River game and he was pretty I
understand he was coming off injury, but he was a
little shaky and I thought Sark kind of schemed around him.
They ran the ball. Well, he gets benched in that game,
and it was it wasn't shocking. I mean, they now

(54:17):
it was clearly he just wanted him to take a
deep breath. He was going to go back to him
at halftime. But I don't know, man, I'm a little
because you watch that Michigan game where you were it's like, God,
this guy looks like a top ten pick. He was awesome,
and then as the season goes on, you're like, well,
Michigan's pretty terrible. Not but again, like in a vacuum,
he was great in that game. If he plays like that,
they're gonna they're gonna be a national title contender. But

(54:39):
if he plays as shaky as he has the last
couple of weeks in spots like you're just throwing picks
and throwing balls all over the place, it is a
little risky for them, though their defense is a lot better.
What are your thoughts on just the Youer Sark situation
for coming down the home stretch of the playoffs.

Speaker 4 (54:55):
I think Sarks as good as anyone in America at
what he does, play, call design scheme. Offensively, he is
as good as anyone in college football. So if his
best is not enough, then you just looking at a
powerhouse in Georgia. I'd be interested to see if that
game happened again, how much carryover we have. So Texas
got stoned running the ball, which is a non negotiable.

(55:16):
You got to be able to do that. You're probably
not going to be Georgia. You got to get enough
out of the run game. I mean, Bama played him
in the SEC title game last year and beat him.
They got enough in the run game. You got to
be able to do that minimum. The other part about
that that was funny is Georgia's defense did a great
drop of forcing turnovers. So they had I think six
scoring drives. Four of them started in Texas territory, another

(55:37):
one started at the Georgia forty five. So if we
play that game again and nothing flips other than average
starting field position, I wonder how the game plays out.
I wonder if it plays out different because, sort of
in a low key manner, Carson Beck didn't play good
the other night. Carson Beck's been you could argue he
was worse. He's been turned over prone all year. So

(56:00):
if you could promise me that that's gonna flip, then
Georgia's your slam dunk national title favorite. But as long
as that vulnerability is there, then I certainly would lean
Georgia in a rematch. But I'm not sure how much
of that game we saw the other night will be
copy and paste. I know the elements of it, Like
if you can't run the ball to a minimum degree
against Georgia, it's going to play out a different way,

(56:22):
but your result would probably be the same. I'm just saying,
if anyone in America is gonna be able to dial
it up, I would trust Sark to be able to
dial it up. And if he can't, Georgia just earned
himselves a national title basically because man outside of Ohio
State Oregon. And we'll see how that plays out. Doesn't
it still feel to you like until shown otherwise, that's

(56:43):
kind of your final four that we're working with. I
feel like there may be a little drop off past
those four.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Still, I do wonder with you know, before in the
final four, like once you got to the final four,
you just once you win that one game, you basically
got ten days to get rid of. It was such
a unique environment, right, The hardest part of the NCAA
tournament is getting to the final four. So football, you
get one shot, you have a bad half all of

(57:08):
a sudden, look at Georgia against Alabama. One bad half,
you're just behind the eight ball. You gotta have you
gotta almost be perfect in the second half. And that's
where I think. I don't know, I mean, I think
that the best teams now, historically in college football, some
of the great teams did not have like superstar NFL quarterbacks.
That's kind of what it feels like Georgia. Obviously, Carson Beck,

(57:30):
you know, looks more like a third day pick than
he does a first round pick at this point in time.
But good teams have always won national championships like that historically.
Now it changed a little bit recently, right with a
lot of guys number one or top ten picks being
national championship leaders from Burrow to you know, Tuau's and
you know, Trevor Lawrence. But I don't know. I agree, Yeah,

(57:52):
I do think this twelve team playoff, we're just gonna
have an upset. It feels inevitable this year, at least
the way so far the season's played out.

Speaker 4 (57:59):
Right, here's what I hope. If that happens, then that's fine.
I hope what doesn't happen is attrition based upsets, because
it's as much as people may from fifty thousand feet say,
oh this is great. Man. More games equals more randomization.
If more games equals your quarterback gets hurt, Garrett Nussmeyer

(58:19):
goes down so much.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
I agree.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
I agree that that's not good, that's lame. Yeah, upset happened.
But I think if we just flat out get into
a situation where, yeah, in the aggregate, the totality of
a twelve team field leads Iowa State to be in
a dogfight with Oregon in the fourth quarter, that would
surprise me. And if it's a straight up football game,

(58:41):
I don't care what turnover margin is, but if it's
a straight up non injury impacted football game, that's wonderful.
I'll still have to see that kind of stuff to
believe it, but if it happens, that's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
What was your takeaway being in an outen stadium watching
those two teams playing just a pretty epid game.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
I had to turn my phone off. So here's here's
what never before. I've been there one time a couple
of years ago for a UCLA game, so it didn't
really compare to this. So, as you know, we have
a bunch of cathedrals called football stadiums in the South,
and most of them are unbelievable, and the pageantry and
everybody's year revolves around a few Saturdays, preferably at night

(59:18):
in those places. So I go up to Autsin for
the Ohio State game, just deafening. Husky Stadium last year
for Oregon was the same way. So I come back
home and I tell my brethren down south, Hey, these
places may be like forty thousand less capacity, but on
elite Saturdays, they really don't take a back seat to
many places. And so I went on a CBS show

(59:41):
the next day and they asked me to rank the
environments that I've been in. So I said, Autsin was
the best Big ten environment I've ever been in. And
I've been to the white out at Penn State and
that's wonderful. That's the only other thing that compared john
to what I experienced at Austin with Ohio State. The
test you can do is you just close your eyes
and at that point you can't see how big the

(01:00:02):
venue is. Just listen. You can't hear. It's unbelievable and
sound just rains down on you. So I say that,
and it's met with a predictable result, and that is
everybody disagrees. But then you push people on it and
you find out ninety percent of the people who are
disagreeing have never been there. They're just using the law
of mathematics in their head. Well, sixty thousand people can't
be as lot as one hundred thousand. Well, I mean

(01:00:23):
if your place is shaped like this and their place
is shaped like this, then yes, they absolutely can. It's acoustics.
It's science. I'm not going to pretend to know how
to explain it, but it is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
So.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
I thought it was the best spectacle for selling Oregon
that you could have ever had. It was probably the
best recruiting day they've ever had. I was there Friday
with the staff, and I know they had a lot
of visitors in there, but forget about visiting. Just picture
yourself being from Myrtlebeat, South Carolina. You couldn't get there,
but just watching that display on TV. And also think
about this from a longer form perspective. Oregon when they've won,

(01:00:57):
it's always felt sort of gimmicky. It's always felt that
they can't do it the way the big boys do,
so they very effectively find an alternative way to do it. Oregon,
for the first time in the program's history, can win
going straight up toe to toe with Ohio State, straight
up toe to toe with a Georgia or in Alabama.
And it's because the mechanisms of the sport have sort

(01:01:18):
of had a confluence with them hiring Dan Lanning and
now in terms of talent acquisition, they can go to
the South, they can go to the East coast, and
they can convince guys to come there, and they're really
really good and like they're assassin based in the portal
and so it's not gimmick. It's just grind. I mean,
they can grind out wins now and I don't think
that's going to change anytime soon. So all that being

(01:01:40):
on display, along with the environment, I don't know that
you've ever had a more effective Saturday, all encompassing for
Oregon football than you had for that Ohio State game.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
It's funny. In that game, it was obviously a huge
win for Landing, who has had an awesome team these
last couple of years, but was zero and three against
a Boor and last year they were they were I think,
you know, nine point favorite in that PAC twelve championship
game in Vegas, and that was they kind of got
they kind of got worked. I mean they got run on.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
They Washington out rushed them.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
That was a debor. Hey, if Saban wants to retire,
I'm ready right so now on the flip side, So
it was a massive win for him and he was
highly thought of before. But I don't want to say
it validates it because they got a long way to go.
But he's gonna win a lot of games. Clearly keep winning.
Ryan Day, who wins a lot of games. I mean
that record against the top team speaks for itself. What's

(01:02:32):
your takeaway in just that narrative of his career for
a guy that has this incredible winning percentage? But is
what one and seven now against top five or six teams?

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
Yeah, they're basically the eighth or ninth rung on a
ten rung ladder. They're close, They're not being blown out
in these games. They're normally won possession like that. You
remember that Georgia's semi final game with them a couple
of years ago. It's a missed field goal away from
them playing TC.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
They easily could have won that game.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
It's it's an it's an so on one hand, I
think to myself, is the trajectory that a ball comes
off a foot? Really the difference in this guy being
a king and this guy sucking like I don't think
like that, but it kind of is, but it kind
of I know. I know how result oriented this business is.
So I get both sides of the equation. And if

(01:03:18):
I were an Ohio State fan, I give and give
and give just like the Georgia folks do. I give
and give and give just like the Bama folks do.
We sell our stadium out, We're invested, we're passionate. We're
like an NFL team in Columbus, Ohio. So I should
have an insanely high expectation on degree of return for
that financial and emotional investment. So I understand that you
can't lose to Michigan three years in a row. I

(01:03:39):
get all that. So I'm not an Ohio State fan
though I'm just observing the program. My take is you're
really close and I always, I always with Ryan Day
lately have had to do the comparative analysis because there's
a perfect corollary to this. We just talked about him
a few minutes ago. It's Kirby Smart. Ryan Day is
basically Kirby Smart. You may say, no, he's not. Kirby's

(01:04:02):
got two titles. Why don't mean twenty twenty one and
beyond Kirby, I mean twenty twenty in before Kirby. So
twenty twenty Kirby, unbeknownst to us, is one year away
from winning a title. I'll scratch that. Let's go a
step further. December twenty twenty one. Kirby Smart has just
lost the SEC title game to Nick Saban and Alabama again.

(01:04:23):
And you won't find anyone with the stones in the
South to admit this. But there was this chart, there
was this little graphic on sociation and it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Wasn't a field goal game if I remember.

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
No, it was of course, no, it wasn't, was it. Yeah?
And so what they had started to do is they
had made this little blind resume ab scenario and one
of them was Mark rickt and the other one was
Kirby Smart. And their records and everything, wins against top
ten teams, it all looked identical. And Kirby at that
point was like, oh and whatever against Nick Saban and Alabama.
And I'm gonna tell you the exact phraseology that kept

(01:04:53):
getting thrown at. That guy can't win the big one,
that's what they kept saying about him. He's good, but
he can't win the big and what are we really
doing here if he can't get over the hump, can't
win the big one? All the usual phrases. And then
he won the big one, and then he won another
big one, and then it was off to the races,
and he's the best coach in America and it's the

(01:05:14):
best program in America. And the difference is so negligible.
The difference in terms of process is the exact same.
It's just that they kept applying the process. They did
all the boring coach speak stuff. They kept chopping enough
to where they finally went their way, and it went
their way a couple of times, and then they got
the program momentum, and then save and retires, and so like,

(01:05:35):
here's my only, my only ask. After that Ohio State
Oregon game, I went on Columbus radio and they were
wanting to kill the guy, and I'm like, can we
at least wait to see how this season plays out?
So they just lost by one on the road. They're
still favored to win the conference. They're one of the
favorites to win the whole thing. Can we please you?
Can you do me the favor of just letting me

(01:05:56):
see the season play out, because that season we're talking
about saw Kirby get another shot at BAMA a month
later and beat him in Indianapolis. That's Bryce Young's Alabama.
They still beat him for the title. So they're still
right up there to win the whole thing this year.
Like it's not the end of the world.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
You know. I'm a noted Ohio State haters, just one
of those where I just didn't really like him growing
up for no real reason. It's not like I went
to school against him or anything. The difference, I would say,
and I'll say this for Ryan Day. The Georgia loss
and the Ohio State loss aren't bad losses like this
his team's. I mean, he at that Oregon game, they
showed up ready to kick their butt. I mean, if

(01:06:33):
it wasn't for an early created fumble by the defensive line,
and it looked like they could be up multiple scores.
I mean, they were shoving the ball around him, so
they he had his squad ready. The Michigan games are
bad and that's one that it's hard to shake. Kirby
took over a Georgia program that obviously had some issues.
What Hypel did at Tennessee has been very impressive. Like
I do think there is some merit to when Harboss

(01:06:55):
has born, like he did take over kind of a
freight train at Ohio State. It's kind of like Gibor
at Alabama, Like the programs had been an upward trajectory
the recruiting standpoint, they had recently won national titles, And
I do think it's fair to just go Like Kirby,
we knew he was such a good coach because you
were watching what he could. He win the big one,
but he had to me more equity, like I'm sorry,

(01:07:15):
like beating the crap out of Minnesota, Purdues and Rutgers.
I just think people at Ohio State is like, I'm
kind of numb to it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
It just doesn't matter to me anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
And I think there's I do understand it's probably obviously
over aggressive in Columbus, but I do think some of
the question marks with him specifically, like some of these
other guys like have just earned more equity of like
remember what it was like before me like you can't,
Ryan Dy can't really say that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:38):
Yeah, But so here's my follow up. I agree with
everything you just said. My follow up is always like
we circle back to what we originally were talking about.
You asked me the same thing a lot of people
ask me, and that is, hey, what do you think
about Ryan Day? And what I told you is eight
throng on a ten rung ladder. That's what I said.
So then you and I go down this whole road,
just like any Ohio State fan would, and I'll circle

(01:08:00):
back to the same things, like when they tell me
James Franklin's overrated, I'll circle back to the same thing.
All right, I said he's the eight thrung on a
ten rung ladder. I didn't say he's great. I didn't
say he's elite. So do you disagree with me? And
they'll always say no, I guess I don't. I mean
that's the take. The take is there's some stuff that
he's done that hasn't been good enough. Now, I will
say this, he did grab the baton from a program

(01:08:22):
that was running at a very high level, which means
you're just running off momentum for a few years. When
you get half a dozen years in though it is
your program, and if you're not the real deal, the
program will have regressed. And there's some revisionist history with
what Meyers teams were doing. Myers team's played a ton
of close games. They got that twenty fourteen year where

(01:08:42):
they ended up getting on a run with Cardil Jones,
and you don't take that away from anyone, But I mean,
it's not like the program has steadily regressed every year.
The one thing I wish to agree there, the one
thing I want for them is they've been beaten by
Michigan three consecutive years, and Michigan has been a less
talented roster three consecutive years. And I've looked at Ohio

(01:09:04):
State and they can recruit any athlete they want. Therefore,
they can play any style they want. And I'm thinking
to myself, why would you ever be a team whose
identity is its wide receivers. Why is your identity not
offensive line? Why is your identity not sledgehammer? Why is
Michigan why why can they go through you? That should
never be the case. So I thought the course correction

(01:09:24):
for this year was going to be that of adopting
the mentality and installing the mentality of a team that
is a little more hard nosed, and maybe you don't
have three thousand yard receivers been in the aggregate, you
end up being a better football team. And it's still
a little early to properly diagnose that, but man, they
kind of got it taken to him physically a little
bit against Oregon. So that's the biggest concern to me

(01:09:47):
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
I do think there's probably more pressure on him, maybe
not to win the national title, but to be a
pretty big force in the playoff, probably at least be
in the title game than any other coach. Right Kirby's minted,
if hypol and some of the these guys just make
the playoffs, even sark, I mean, what he's done with
that program. I dan Lanning is going nowhere. Not saying
they would fire the guy, but I don't think they

(01:10:09):
can just afford to lose like before they get to
the final four, even the final four, depending on who
they play like this roster, because I'm with you, their
running backs are pretty good at Ohio State. I mean,
so it's like I would slam the ball downs people's throat,
which I would imagine, like that's what they're going to
need to do to win the national title. Though I
actually was pretty impressive Will Howard in that game. I
thought he looked pretty good, but the ending kind of

(01:10:31):
unraveled on him. A couple more things before I get
you out of here. You told me you're going to
the Boise State unob game, which is are like Georgia
Bama or you know it's a big game out for
US Mountain West. Wha former whack people? Do you think?
Because I don't think it's possible unless he ran for

(01:10:52):
like five thousand yards. Did a non power school player
or non power forward because we've seen non like Bama
kids win it can Could Austin Genty win the Heisman?
Could mat because I don't think he Because I don't
think he can.

Speaker 4 (01:11:09):
I don't think he will. You know, if we were
I always hesitate to say never because if I think
there's a one percent chance, I'm not going to say never.
So that's kind of stat nerd stuff. I don't think
he will. There's a lot of romanticism around guys like that.
But remember the year mark Ingram won it at running back,
he had a terrible game against Auburt. He ran for

(01:11:31):
like thirty something yards and then they won the SEC title.
The next week he ends up winning it. And my
point is at the tailback position, if you play for
a major brand, you can have one of those games
baked into your stat profile, and there's still so much
aura around the helmet that you wear that you'll just
be pushed over the finish line. The second gent runs

(01:11:52):
for sixty three yards in a game, that's it for him.
Like that's that there are people who are willing to
have his name in the conversation right now that will
participate in actively yanking the rug out from under him
if he has one bad game. John, that's not even
to mention. What if he just gets deemed up as
tailbacks often do, carrying the load of mail that he does.
So I think it's a contingent also on does a

(01:12:15):
quarterback get hot? Does Travis Hunter state injury prone? There
are probably some other variables there, but I'm with you.
I'm going to watch him Friday because I want to
be able to say I watched him in person. But
I don't know if we'll see him on the stage.
I think we'll see him in the crowd in New York.
I don't know. That we'll see him on the stage.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
What I think has a chance to be a cool
moment is if they run the table and if they
are the eleven or twelve seed and they're.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
Playing like LSU, oh yeah, and he has his like.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Steph Curry in the tournament moment. It's like, do you
remember when Austin gent ran for one hundred and fifty
seven yards and three touchdowns against LSU in one of
the bigger upsets we've seen in recent memory. That that
would be just the opportunity for that would be pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (01:12:53):
I didn't think about that. I didn't think about because.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
You never really get that in college football because the
Donald fourd is always just the boys.

Speaker 4 (01:13:00):
Right, yeah, you would, and no one really romanticizes the
G five conference title races, so we never really have
that Davidson you know, round of sixty four, round of
thirty two moment used.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
To happen a little bit in the in the bowl games.
But even that, like remember when boys he beat Oklahoma?
Who do you got to win the Natty? As we
sit here right now.

Speaker 4 (01:13:21):
I was, so I still have Ohio State because I
picked him in the preseason. So I'm not gonna come
off the pick recency bias. I can't ignore what I
just watched Georgia do. I can't. It's hard for me
to ignore that. And so if I knew those teams
were playing Saturday, I would I would probably hold my
nose and still take Ohio State. But I mean secretly,

(01:13:42):
I'd be logging into every account I have laying something
on Georgia. I think there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
Is you think Georgia would be favored in that game.

Speaker 4 (01:13:49):
I do not at the I think they would be
a very slight favorite at the moment. I mean like
a point or less. I still think odds makers are
very high on Ohio State. I have this fight all
the time. I'll have it on my show tonight about
who Ohio State would still be favored against, which is
worth nothing more than what a pregame odd would be
on a matchup. But I'm still thinking there's a little

(01:14:11):
bit more runway for this team to build up speed
than maybe the rest of the college football public does.
So I'll stay with my Ohio State pick right now.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Let everyone know where they can find you, obviously.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
YouTube, well, YouTube, Josh Pit's College Football Show, basically wherever
you want to search. I think I made the most
fool proof name ever because if you think you've forgotten
the name, the thing that you would search is the
name of the show itself. So anywhere, podcast, YouTube, wherever
you want to get it, it's there at your convenience.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
You got an easy name too to type in, you know,
sometimes middle coffee, you know, it's harder to spell. So
it's just Josh Paid. I'm jealous of that. For the
YouTube algorithm, man, I really appreciate that. Enjoy watching genty
this week and keep crushing, bro.

Speaker 4 (01:14:59):
I appreciate you having yeah the volume

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Mhm

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